Secchia, former U.S. Ambassador to Italy, founded and funded the effort to commission one sculpture every two years for the next 50 years. The pieces are to be donated by the Peter F. Secchia Family Foundation to the city, or a nonprofit when they’re erected.

Chief Noonday, known as Noahquageshik or Nawquageezhig, was the second to be cast in bronze by sculptor Antonio Tobias Mendez. The statue of the leader of the Grand River Band of Ottawa Indians in the late 19th century stands on the west side of the Grand River, outside Grand Valley State University's Eberhard Center, near the Blue Bridge in downtown Grand Rapids.

Amway Corp. co-founder Jay Van Andel, who died in 2004 at age 80, was the third to be honored in July 2011 with the installation of a sculpture in front of the Van Andel Arena in downtown Grand Rapids.

Van Andel founded the Van Andel Institute and provided major funding for the Grand Rapids Public Museum among other philanthropic projects.

The artist is J. Brett Grill, the West Michigan sculptor who created the statue of former President Gerald R. Ford that’s featured in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. A duplicate of that sculpture was installed at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in July 2011.

Bishop Frederic Baraga, the first Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie, now the Diocese of Marquette, was the fourth figure enshrined in bronze with a sculpture unveiled in July 2012 in Cathedral Square, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids. Jay Hall Carpenter sculpted the statue standing over 7-feet tall.

Born in Slovenia in 1797, Baraga was a gifted linguist who mastered eight languages, including Ottawa, to serve the Native American and immigrant communities in Ohio and Michigan as a missionary priest in the first half of the 19th century. In 1823, he published the first-ever book in Ottawa, one of the Algonquin languages.

In 1833, he founded a mission on the west bank of the Grand River near the site of present-day St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Grand Rapids.

In May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared Baraga as venerable, the first step toward possible canonization as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Community Legends Project currently is working on statues of civil rights leader Helen Claytor, the first African-American to be national president of the YWCA; and of Polish-born athlete Stanley Ketchel who grew up in Grand Rapids and became world middleweight champion in boxing.